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'The desert city of Chinguetti, sinking ever-deeper under the sands of the Sahara, is the last place in the world you would expect to find a library. Yet this crumbling outpost in the west-African country of Mauritania is home to around 6,000 rare books and manuscripts, including some of the oldest Koranic texts in existence which date back to the 9th Century. It was once the prosperous and bustling trade centre of several 'trans-Sahara' trade routes. Traders from all over Europe, north-Africa and the Levant would stop in Chinguetti before moving on to sub-Saharan Africa. There, they would rub shoulders...

Explosive ramifications result from new evidence revealing the Muslim holy book has undergone a textual evolution Frontpage Interview’s guests today are Robert Spencer and Moorthy Muthuswamy. Moorthy Muthuswamy is an expert on terrorism in India. He grew up in India, where he had firsthand experience with political Islam and jihad. He moved to America in 1984 to pursue graduate studies. In 1992, he received a doctorate in nuclear physics from Stony Brook University, New York. Since 1999 he has extensively published ideas on neutralizing political Islam’s terror war as it is imposed on unbelievers. He is the author of the...

Folks, Sandro Magister, the world-renowned vaticanista, hosted in his website an exchange between Muslim theologian Aref Ali Nayed and the Catholic Islamologist Michel Cuypers which I think you should read. The subject of the exchange is one that I’ve covered repeatedly in these humble folios, having to do with the need for a higher criticism of the Koran in order to know, expose, and study its literary genres, its historical context, the oral traditions that converged in its formation, and the phases in its redaction that gave us the text as we read it today. Of course, such an...

J A N U A R Y   1 9 9 9Researchers with a variety of academic and theological interests are proposing controversial theories about the Koran and Islamic history, and are striving to reinterpret Islam for the modern world. This is, as one scholar puts it, a "sensitive business" by Toby Lester (The online version of this article appears in three parts. Click here to go to part two. Click here to go to part three.) N 1972, during the restoration of the Great Mosque of Sana'a, in Yemen, laborers working in a loft between the structure's inner and...

Ok, let's get down to brass tacks. How long has the Islam religion been around and have they always been so hateful and violent (like so many of them are today)? I believe they claim to be direct descendants of Abraham but I also believe that Abraham was a favorite of our one true Judeo-Christian God, and was the father or grandfather of the Jewish and Christian religions. I have a hard time believing that our loving Judeo-Christian God is also the Islam God, Allah, whose Muslim followers seem to be so misplaced. Haven't the warlike Muslim tribes fanned out...

The 'Birmingham Koran' fragment that could shake Islam after carbon-dating suggests it is OLDER than the Prophet Muhammad Fragments of the oldest Koran were discovered last month in BirminghamCarbon dating found the pages were produced between 568AD and 654AD But several historians now say that the parchment may predate MuhammadThey believe that this discovery could rewrite the early history of Islam Fragments of the world's oldest Koran, found in Birmingham last month, may predate the Prophet Muhammad and could even rewrite the early history of Islam, according to scholars.The pages, thought to be between 1,448 and 1,371 years old, were...

Fragments of an early Koran found in a Birmingham library may rewrite Islamic history after carbon dating revealed they could be older than Mohammed.

The BBC announced enthusiastically Wednesday that “what may be the world’s oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham.” This news is not only of interest to scholars and Muslim intellectuals; it appears to buttress the Islamic claim that the Qur’an’s text has remained unchanged for 1,400 years – which is purported to be proof of its divine origin. There is only one problem with all this: the BBC article raises more questions than it answers, and reveals more about the wishful thinking of the academic and media establishments than it does about the...

What may be the world's oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham. Radiocarbon dating found the manuscript to be at least 1,370 years old, making it among the earliest in existence. The pages of the Muslim holy text had remained unrecognised in the university library for almost a century. The British Library's expert on such manuscripts, Dr Muhammad Isa Waley, said this "exciting discovery" would make Muslims "rejoice". The manuscript had been kept with a collection of other Middle Eastern books and documents, without being identified as one of the oldest fragments of the...

According to reporting from The New York Times, some of the Marines killed in the Chattanooga shooting were killed trying to draw the gunman’s fire away from another, larger group of innocent bystanders. “Some of the Marines who were shot to death last week in Chattanooga, Tenn., effectively sacrificed themselves to save the lives of others, diverting the gunman away from a larger group of potential victims, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation into the killings,” reports New York Times reporters Richard Pérez-Peña and Matt Apuzzo. “This could have been a lot worse,” they quote the...

After it was revealed that the Muslim shooter who on Thursday murdered four US Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee was the son of a man who previously was on the terrorist watch list, new details have surfaced about the father. It has been widely reported that the shooter, Muhammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, was a naturalized American born in Kuwait. While it’s true his mother Rasmia Abdulazeez is from Kuwait, where Muhammod was born in 1990, multiple reports reveal that the attacker’s father Youssuf Abdulazeez actually hailed from Shechem (Nablus) in Samaria, a city under Palestinian Authority (PA) control. […] Experts have said...

Abdulazeez's anger was fueled by the dangerous Islamist/leftist lie about the treatment of Muslims in this country. Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, who murdered four Marines in a jihad terror attack in Chattanooga Thursday morning, attended Red Bank High School in the Chattanooga area. In his senior yearbook, he accompanied his photo with this self-pitying note: “My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do? Any national security alert over Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez’s name would have been abundantly justified. In any case, he provides an intriguing case study in how little distinction there really is in the U.S. Muslim community between...

A once devoted, disciplined mixed martial arts fighter. A top student known for smarts, charm and humor. A devout Muslim, who kept in touch with his roots in the Middle East. That's how a former coach and classmates describe Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, who killed four U.S. Marines and wounded three more people Thursday in Chattanooga. Police killed Abdulazeez. People who knew him were stunned to hear he was the man who sprayed a military recruiting center at a strip mall with bullets, then drove 7 miles to assault a Navy Operational Support Center.

As the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ends Friday, a spate of recent terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists — including massacres in Tunisia and Kuwait — has marred a time intended for contemplation and prayer. But for Muslim American immigrants in the Washington area, this Ramadan has offered an opportunity to send a contrasting message about Islam and to engage in unprecedented public outreach. Dozens of interfaith events have been held in mosques, embassies and government offices. Muslim charity drives have raised funds for damaged African American and Pakistani churches. Families have opened their homes to neighbors and colleagues to...

TAVARES -- More than 100 people have been arrested in a large-scale, two-county operation that targeted cyber crimes and prostitution, authorities said Tuesday. (snip) Saleem is also the founder of the Saleem Academy, an organization empowering Muslim youth globally and also served as the Orlando coordinator for CAIR, the Counsel On Islamic American Relations.